Hunt is on for phony POWs

Tuesday

Dec 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 30, 2008 at 3:33 PM

CHICAGO -- The story that Richard Barr Cayton has told of his Vietnam War service features a torturous march through the jungle in January 1971, his arms tied to a branch across the back of his neck and shoulders. He was a prisoner of war, he said, until a bombing distracted his captors, and he and a fellow soldier escaped.

Cayton recounted the episode for a Texas newspaper in 2002, saying that he and the other Army Ranger, David Meyer, traveled by night and hid during the day until they were found.

For all its drama, Cayton's story of captivity and a flight to freedom is not supported by military records or interviews with his fellow soldiers. Records show that Cayton was a soldier but never a prisoner of war, and he admitted that in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

"I made a mistake," Cayton said. "I did something wrong and apologized for it."

Cayton's tale is perhaps one of the more dramatic examples of someone who falsely maintains that he was a prisoner of war. Such claims are so common that a cottage industry of sorts has emerged to expose phony POWs, Navy SEALs, Green Berets and others falsely claiming that they served in elite military units.

A recent Tribune investigation highlighted a similar problem that is just as pervasive: false claims of earning the military's top medals for valor, a lie that also is now a criminal offense.

The private watchdogs who investigate such claims are vigilant and aggressive. This summer, an Oklahoma newspaper published the story of a man who claimed he was a former SEAL who, during Vietnam, was held in a bamboo cage for four years. Former SEAL Steve Robinson, who wrote a book about exposing phony SEALs, immediately suspected the man was a fraud. He checked a database of real SEALs to confirm his suspicions, then wrote the newspaper to say it had been hoodwinked.

Less than a week later, the man admitted to the newspaper that he had lied.

The POW watchdogs who exposed Cayton are retirees who work out of their home in the tiny Missouri town of Skidmore.

By their count, Mary and Chuck Schantag of the P.O.W. Network have exposed close to 1,900 impostors since 1998, when they began to check POW claims. They say they have exposed another 2,000 men who claimed they were in elite units.

"It's taken over our lives," said Mary Schantag. "We check reports of phonies when we get up in the morning and before we get to bed at night."

Their motivation is simple. "The lies are changing history. It's wrong. It causes the real heroes to be grouped with the phonies and frauds," she said. "The integrity and honor should be given to those who really earn it."

Their job is made easier because, compared with World War II, the Vietnam War produced relatively few American POWs -- 766 -- and the military has thoroughly documented them, said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.

Consequently, it takes only a few keystrokes to determine whether someone claiming to be a POW is telling the truth; the names of prisoners from the Vietnam and Korean Wars are posted online.

On their Web site, the Schantags detail the cases they make under the heading "Phonies & Wannabees," with stories of the frauds and, sometimes, apologies from soldiers and sailors who lied.

Similarly, online sleuths in recent years have sought to expose people claiming to be Navy SEALS.

Recently the Tribune did its own analysis to gauge the frequency of such fabrications. Whether found in Who's Who, obituaries or news articles, nearly half of the 89 people identified as having served in the Army's Special Forces or the Navy's SEALs had no association with those elite warriors, according to their official military files.

In addition to barring false claims to medals awarded for bravery, the broadly worded federal law known as the Stolen Valor Act prohibits claiming, either orally or in writing, a false entitlement to any "decoration" or "badge" worn by the Armed Forces. According to the FBI, people have been prosecuted under the act for falsely claiming to have served as a SEAL or a Green Beret.

Making a bogus boast of POW status, however, is not against the law, though many in the military consider it equally offensive.

"They can brag all they want. They can say that they were held in the worst possible conditions," Greer said. "But that's not a crime. Those people, well, they're just bigmouths."

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